Dentistry News | Dental Jobs | Dentist Forum | CPD Education
Dental news |
 |
RSS Feed | View by: Most Recent | Most Popular | Most Discussed |
Think tank says dentists should get NHS quota
25th Mar 2009
Dentists should have a cap on the amount of private work they do, a think tank has said.
The New Local Government Network, which specialises in public service reform, said imposing a quota would help improve access to NHS dentistry.
It said such a move was justified as it cost £175,000 to train a dentist.
Their call came in an open letter to Professor Jimmy Steele who is leading the independent review into NHS dentistry.
But dental leaders said they were against the idea of quotas, pointing out that there were dentists who wanted to do more NHS work but could not.
In total, there is believed to be 3,000 dentists working solely on private patients, while another 4,000 are spending less than 25% of their time on NHS patients.
To remedy the situation, the think tank suggested that dentists could be compelled to spend half of their time on NHS patients in return for their training.
Chris Leslie and Nigel Keohane, from the think tank, write in an open letter to the government review team: ‘When the typical dentist has received the benefit of around £175,000 of taxpayer investment in their training and development, we feel that there should be a greater obligation on those individuals to give more back to the community and dedicate a greater proportion of their time to NHS work. This should go beyond the current obligations for twelve months within the NHS context.'
They added: ‘Dental patients continue to struggle to find NHS practices with capacity to take them. This limits choice and creates inconvenience for the customer and insufficient supply to meet demand.'
Reacting to the publication of the New Local Government Network's People Power? report, Susie Sanderson, chair of the British Dental Association's executive board said: ‘Since reforms to NHS dentistry were imposed in England and Wales in April 2006, care has been commissioned directly from dentists or dental practices by primary care trusts. Contracts are based on the completion of, and funding for, a fixed amount of care. This amount is expressed in units of dental activity (UDAs). It is these UDA-based contracts that the real factor determining the amount of NHS care that can be provided.
‘The size of these contracts varies greatly, with some practices commissioned to provide significant amounts of NHS care and others holding much smaller contracts. Those with smaller contracts will normally also provide private care. This often opens up treatment options to their patients that are not available on the NHS.'
She added: ‘In some instances, dentists have either not been awarded NHS contracts at all, or been awarded NHS contracts that are for smaller NHS commitments than they would have liked.'
Newly qualified dentists emerge from a five-year degree having incurred a significant amount of debt.
According to the BDA's most recent survey of final year dental students, the average debt a new graduate owes is just under £25,000.
Rate this story
Comments
